Quote:
Originally Posted by Z K
Here's a rose gold 18k plated ROO:
http://www.pure-time.com/product/roy...racelet-a7750/
Here's a Vacheron Constantin Tourbillon:
http://www.pure-time.com/product/pat...leather-strap/
Here's a Zenith Tourbillon:
http://www.pure-time.com/product/el-...leather-strap/
Even a simpler Submariner with a 2836 decorated Rolex 3135 movement is approaching $500:
http://www.pure-time.com/product/sub...edition-a3135/
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I would not suggest ordering replicas from random web sites. There are discussion forums for checking which are legit sellers and have quality watches.
The skeleton tourbillon and other open caseback watches are a lot of times not like the originals because anyone who knows the original knows that they don't look the same. But the fact is that watch complications and highly complex designs are available in replicas if you go high enough.
As I said before, these are beyond the street stall fakes. You'll rarely find these in a retail location unless you know someone on the inside... and the pricing and quality means they are above the random impulse buy. |
I had a feeling that you and I were discussing the same goods, but that you found a website that sells them to U.S. consumers and I see them in the Luohu Commercial City (LCC). Based on the links you provided, that's exactly what's going on.
Not one of the watches you linked to at PureTime has a Swiss ETA or Swiss anything else inside. They have either Seagull, as I mentioned, or a Chinese ETA clone inside. That is exactly what you'll get when you go to the LCC and buy a fake XYZ watch and that's exactly what I was talking about in the post I made above where I mentioned the LCC and included a few pics of the shopping tower and the catalog pages from which one picks a watch.
All that's different is that if one is in Shenzhen or Dalian (perhaps other cities as well, I haven't looked for them in other cities), the booth vendors selling them ask for ~500RMB and one has to haggle them down to about 250RMB. The one's at PureTime are priced to reflect the "middlemen" -- however many there are -- involved in getting the watch from the factory just outside central Shenzhen in Guangzhou to the consumer in United States. Those middlemen want Western sized profits and so the watch price inflates from something less than 250RMB to ~2500RMB+ ($40 --> $400+).
You pictured a few highly complicated models. They will cost more, but why anyone would buy a highly complex watch from a maker who makes no pretense about not employing the most sophisticated design, build and finishing techniques is beyond me. The "smart" buy in fakes is uncomplicated watches, not tourbillons, chronographs, perp cals, and so on.
You know the saying, "Don't go to a sushi bar and order the steak." In other words, if you are going to knowingly buy a fake, but one that corresponds to what the maker can be expected to do a good job with. With fake watches, that means things like any fake Rolex except the Daytona, Explorer II or Yachtmaster II, or any other faked, uncomplicated watch.
Going with even a fake chronograph is a mistake. The pushers will feel notchy and be hard to push. The stopwatch function will lose a second or two on start and stop. The minute hand for the stopwatch functions will be continuous rather than incremental. There's no telling how long the stopwatch functions will even function at the lame level to which they are capable, but hopefully, the chrono functionality will have been achieved via a bolt on module rather than via an integrated design. In the former approach, a new module can be bolted on to repair the watch. In the latter scenario, one may as well find some paper that needs holding in place.
Note:
The varying quality of fakes one can buy and whether one opts to buy a fake or not are separate topics. As the title of this thread suggests, I don't care if one buys a fake watch or not. If one is nutty enough to buy a low performing fake complicated watch, I also don't care.
All the best.
P.S.
Before you mention that the $50 or less prices to which I referred are for buying in the PRC, check the price of a roundtrip plane ticket to the PRC. One can get a flight for ~$850 to Hong Kong (1 hour drive across the bay to Shenzhen). First rate dining will run about $30/day (in total for three meals), and safe, clean and modern lodging in the heart of the city, and on the order of a Fairfield Inn or Motel 6, will run ~$8-$15/night.
Actually, one of the best "basic" meals going in the PRC is the grilled chicken and fresh veggies (corn, green beans and enoki mushrooms) cooked on a hibachi set up on the sidewalk outside of a hotel. Grab a bowl of fresh, handmade pasta (or pasta soup) for $1 and toss the grilled veggies in with it. The whole thing will run you about $6 and feed two with food left over. What you'll get will be either legs and thighs on the bone or this.
And since you'll be in the PRC, it's be super fresh, as in they killed the bird about an hour before you showed up. (Rabbit and duck are also popular...they taste good, don't take up a lot of space, and they are easy to keep until they need to be killed.
- T